The Return: A Novel (55 page)

She said, “Sure, fine. So—what’s going on at the
casa
? Why no cell service?”

Pepa explained about Marder’s actions the previous night and what she’d surmised since she’d left the island: the massive attack of La Familia on their rivals and the continuation of the attack on Casa Feliz. She’d been up all night, using her cell phone to wake up people, promising them the story of the decade. She’d deposited the land-transfer papers with the one
notario
in town not entirely a creature of the cartels and then gone to an arcade with a Wi-Fi hot spot and uploaded all her video to her producer’s computer. It was being prepared for airing as they spoke. Pepa and her producer were positive that when it hit the air and the Internet, the pressure to send in the army would be irresistible.

“But what about now, Pepa? That could take days. You say La Familia has hundreds of
sicarios
on Isla de los Pájaros—they could have killed my father and everyone else on the island by the time the army gets moving. We have to get the army there today, right now, this minute.”

“Yes, but I don’t see what we can do—”

“Give me your cell!”

Major Naca’s card had not survived soaking in the sea, but of course Pepa Espinoza had his number. Statch punched it in.

“Third battalion, Sergeant Sanchez, sir!” said the voice.

Statch cranked her accent as high as it would go in the
fresa
direction and told the sergeant that she was a personal friend of Major Naca, that she had vital and urgent information of a national security nature and had to speak to the major immediately.

The major was out of the office; he was on a field operation and could not be reached.

“Sergeant Sanchez, listen to me carefully! My name is Carmel Beatriz Marder. I must speak with Major Naca this minute. I know you have your orders, but there must be some way to patch this call through to his field HQ. Sergeant Sanchez, I would not want to be the soldier responsible for not forwarding this call.”

The use of the man’s name (she would remember him!) and the accent seemed to work. “One moment, Señora,” the man said, and then there was static and a brief exchange with another intermediary.

“Señorita Marder. This is a pleasant surprise, but I am doubly surprised that they patched you through.”

“It’s regrettably not a social call, Major. La Familia has attacked my father’s house in force. They have killed all the Templos that were previously attacking it, and now they are on the point of capturing the house itself. I don’t have to tell you what kind of massacre will ensue. You must move your forces immediately to Isla de los Pájaros and attack them. You have the opportunity to destroy La Familia in southern Michoacán in one blow. But you must move
now
!”

“I can’t do that, Señorita. I’d have to go through channels to authorize an operation like that. It might take days to get the plans approved, and I’m afraid—”

“No, Major, you haven’t understood. This is your moment. The
sicarios
of La Familia are all on an island connected by a narrow causeway. You can trap them all, like rats in a basket. No breaking into buildings and frightening old ladies, only to find that the
malosos
have all run away. It will be war at last and a great victory for the forces of order. And aside from that, if you come now, I will be here.”

A small suppressed chuckle. “You will, will you? I suppose you will do anything I want.”

“No. I will do things you haven’t even imagined, not even in feverish teenaged dreams. Tijuana itself will cringe in shame.”

He laughed, more openly this time.

“Seriously, Cristóbal,” she said, “I realize I don’t know you very well, but from what I do know, I thought you were an
empeño
kind of guy, that you were tired of this whole
no importa
thing. My father is going to die horribly, along with hundreds of other Mexicans, unless you get here. You can stop it. Only you.”

“It’s a lot to ask, Señorita. My whole career—”

“Your career will not be harmed. Quite the contrary, in fact. I have Pepa Espinoza sitting here. She’s made a video of the Templos attacking the property and being beaten back by the armed citizens. This video will be all over Televisa and the Internet within the hour. And Pepa guarantees that she will use the full resources of Televisa to ensure you’re the hero of Mexico. Not only will you not be harmed, but the whole country will demand that you be rewarded.”

A silence ensued on the line. Statch heard cracklings and ghost voices of other conversations. At last, Major Naca spoke, and his voice sounded deeper than it had before. “Ah, well. I suppose I’m tired of being a major. I’ll do it. We should be there in less than an hour.”

“I have to go to the bank,” said Statch, after saying goodbye to the major and giving back the phone. “I need ten thousand pesos for Serafin—no, better make that twenty. I’m hiring his boat for the day.”

“Wait—why do you need to rent a boat?”

“To watch the battle, of course, and to get onto the island after the army takes over. Come on!”

Statch stood and started to walk away. Pepa noticed she was still wearing her safari shirt, stained with sea salt, and a pair of filthy khaki cutoffs six sizes too big for her and tied with a hank of orange poly line.

“I have to wait for my crew,” said Pepa.

“Oh, please! This is the finale of your documentary, the total defeat of the evil ones. And we can land on the island dock after the army takes over and get in on the kill. They’ll hold the official press back a mile and you’ll get another scoop.”

After a tiny, hopeless delay, Pepa picked up her bag, dropped cash on the table, and said, “Do we have time to shop? You really need a new outfit,
chica.
”

*   *   *

“Why?”

Marder couldn’t see the face very well, because it was dark in the concrete room where he was being held, but enough light shone in from the doorway to produce a silhouette, and the shape was unmistakably Skelly’s.

“Because I swore that I would never back a loser again. I learned that in Laos. You obviously learned a different lesson.”

“Then why did you even come? Why did you help us in the first place?”

“You keep forgetting I’m a dope lord, Marder. You don’t want to believe it, but it’s true. My guys over in Asia see what the Mexicans are doing with crank and they want in on it. They’ve got plenty of smack and they see a big market for crank among all those millions of Chinese working double shifts. Think they could go for a little edge? Of course they could, and what could be more profitable? Heroin goes west, meth goes east. They needed a partner to set it up and they figured Cuello was a good bet. So I figured I’d do him a solid, get rid of the Templos for him and make him a present of your little island. He’s real pleased. Speaking of the Templos, they’ve got El Gordo, and I believe they’re planning to peel the fat off him with the kind of hot knife they use for cutting industrial plastics. I’m looking forward to seeing that.”

Marder said, “How’s Lourdes?”

“She’s fine. She’s in Defe, just like you planned.”

“Well, that’s good.”

“Yes, now she can fuck her way to the stars. That’s a nice little monster you created, by the way, all in the cause of doing good. Moving on, I understand you made no trouble over signing the transfer of title.”

“No.”

“Very wise. Although they’re still going to chop you up, I believe they’ll shoot you first, which would not have been the case if you’d given them any trouble on the land deal.”

“You know, Skelly, I really don’t care at this point. Have you heard anything about Carmel?”

“Oh, Carmel is having a boat trip, is what I hear. She’s out there with the Piglet. I expect he’s introducing her to his version of dating.”

“Can’t you do anything?”

“Not me. It’s never good policy to get between the
jefe
and his baby boy. You know, La Familia reminds me of another institution that’s all holy and Christer on the outside and full of depravity and rapists on the inside. You shouldn’t be surprised that old Statch got sucked up into it.”

“You used to hold her on your knee. She used to kiss you good night. She loved you.”

“Well, that was her fucking mistake, wasn’t it. People who love me invariably come to a bad end. And my advice to you is, in your next life, stick with the winners.”

“Then go with God, Patrick,” said Marder.

Skelly spun and walked out, slamming the door behind him.

Marder lay in the dark, trying not to think, trying to communicate with Mr. Thing. He said that if Mr. Thing didn’t mind, now would be a good time to pop his cork. Marder had been reconciled to death for some time, but if he had a choice he did not want it to come under torture, surrounded by the laughing faces of evil men. He’d seen people tortured and he knew that some people would do anything, say anything, for a little surcease, and he didn’t trust himself not to be one of these. Skelly had said they’d shoot him, but could he trust Skelly, even on this? In fact, there was something wrong with Skelly; that last gloating speech was not the man he’d known for forty years. Skelly was a very bad man indeed, but he was not a sadist, and that had been a sadistic speech. Or maybe Skelly had a brain problem of his own—anything was possible.

Marder was also sure that Carmel was not dead, not being subjected to horrendous acts. He had a quasi-mystical belief that he remained in spiritual contact with his children; he’d often called them spontaneously when he sensed there was something wrong, and there almost always was, whether they admitted it at the time or not.

That they were going to kill him he had not a doubt. After he surrendered, after he signed the papers, they had brought him to this place without a blindfold, sitting between two silent
sicarios
in the backseat of a car. So he knew they were in the old Hernandez y Cia brewery, which he surmised had been turned into La Familia central for the region. They still made beer here—he could smell the yeasty stench—and they also made meth and transported it using the same trucks. There had been a fleet of them parked neatly behind the main building, and he recalled wondering if, as a minor part of the deal, they’d retrieved the one that Skelly had stolen.

A light came on, issuing from high up on the wall, from a louvered rectangle clearly designed to allow the circulation of air through the various rooms of the warehouse. He could now see that the room he occupied was stacked with steel drums on rolling steel trolleys—drums that obviously did not contain beer. He heard voices through the louver, and laughter, and one voice that he recognized as belonging to El Gordo. He couldn’t quite make out the words, but the tone was hysterical, the words delivered rapidly, without pause, until they devolved into a shrill scream. There was the stink of burning hair and of frying fat; the screams went on and on for what seemed like hours. Marder wished he could stop his ears, but his hands were bound and so he had to listen, which was, of course, the point.

At last the screams stopped. Marder heard laughter, joking, and a single shot, and then the
slish
of a wet object being dragged over concrete, another nasty sound. Some minutes passed and then the door to Marder’s room opened, the overhead light snapped on, and four men stepped in. Two were
sicarios
with the usual neat attire and blank, merciless faces; one was a man in a fresh white hooded Tyvek suit and a plastic apron, who carried a chain saw; and one was Don Melchor Cuello.

The two
sicarios
rolled an empty drum trolley to a position under the light and then picked up Marder, untied his wrists and ankles, and then retied him to the steel trolley. Marder looked at Cuello and said, “We really need to have a talk about your business model.”

The Tyvek man glanced at his
jefe,
his hand on the starter cord of the chain saw. Cuello made an arresting gesture.

“Really. What about my business model?”

“Well, in general, any model that relies on torture and murder is unsustainable in the long run. Clearly you know this; you’re an intelligent man. All of the original leaders of La Familia have been killed, and the average life span of a cartel leader once he’s reached the top can’t be much more than, what? Five years? And during that time you have to live like an animal, hunted from place to place, no security, and, really, no way to enjoy your money. Can you take a girlfriend to Paris on a private jet and stay at the George V? Of course you can’t. Can you enjoy the prestige and honors accorded to other wealthy men—a nice house in Chapultepec, invitations to high-society functions, your daughters and granddaughters married to respectable men, a place of honor in the community? You can’t. It must be very frustrating for you, and it’s all because of your business model.”

Cuello wore a patronizing smile now. “And what would you suggest I do instead?”

“Divest the dope business. You’ve got your capital from it and you don’t need it anymore. Educate any of your
sicarios
with the brains for it and pension off the rest. It can be done—it
has
been done. Half a dozen big American fortunes were based on illegal booze during Prohibition, and the smart guys got out when they’d made their pile. The stupid ones died in prison or on the street. Sell the labs and the distribution systems. Use the money to get into politics. Enough bribes and you can probably arrange for amnesty. Invest in securities. Pay your taxes. Contribute to charities. In five years no one will want to know you were a drug lord.”

“And I suppose I should start by letting you go?”

“It would be a good symbolic gesture.”

Cuello’s face took on a thoughtful cast and he gazed for a moment up at one of the room’s dark corners. Then he said, “Well, these are interesting ideas, and I confess I’ve had thoughts along those lines myself. On the other hand, if things go on the way they’ve been going, the cartels will be as powerful as the state itself here in Mexico. Eventually they will reach an accommodation with the government, as they did in the days of the PRI. We will be able to ship our dope and buy the politicians, and I will then have all of the benefits of respectability that you’ve just described. And—
and
—I will still be able to watch my enemies being chopped into pieces, which, I have to confess, I do enjoy. But that was a good try. Very original.”